Putin Is In Over His Head, And That Makes Him Even More Dangerous

The invasion of Ukraine is not going well at all for Russian "president" Vladimir Putin, and he is meeting resistance at every turn. And with the rest of the world sanctioning the Russian economy into oblivion, Putin appears, at the moment, to have already lost this battle. But that doesn't mean anyone can declare victory - quite the opposite. A desperate Putin is even more dangerous, and Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what that could mean.

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Find our merchandise at Teespring

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

Follow more of our stories at

Subscribe to our podcast

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Vladimir Putin is still launching his assault against Ukraine and right now it doesn't appear that he has any real strategy about what the hell to do in the country. Now, there have been casualties in this war. There have been hundreds of Russian soldiers that have died. There's been countless Ukrainians that have been killed so far. It, it is a blood bath we're watching as Russia sends missiles to civilian areas in Ukraine. Peace talks have stalled. Although the Ukrainian government of course says, they may have plans to negotiate with Russia. You know, we may have an idea on how to make these things happen. But so far we have not seen any of it come to fruition. And based on what we know, Russia is refusing to back down on any of their demands.

Which of course includes Ukraine adding to their constitution, that they will never join NATO. It forces Ukraine to recognize Russia's annexing of Crimea. And of course they have to give up the sovereign parts of Ukraine to Russia. So basically you can't do anything to protect yourself and we're taking part of your country too. Those are Russia's demands. Those were the demands before the invasion even happened and Russia does not appear to be backing down. So I don't know what Ukraine means when they say we may have a, have an idea on how to move forward with negotiations, but I guess time will tell. But they're also at a point where they may not need to concede anything. Russia is not winning this invasion. They are being held back by a military force and a population that is far less equipped than they are.

And that has put Russia and Vladimir Putin on their heels. They did not expect this. They went into Ukraine thinking that they would be able to conquer these areas before the West could even tie their shoes. But that didn't happen. And because of that, because of Ukraine fighting them back, the West was able to mobilize, take action, initiate the sanctions, basically send their economy tumbling. The ruble, you know, is, ruble, sorry, is worth absolutely nothing right now. And it's hurting everybody in Russia. It's, it's hurting the needy citizens of Russia who don't want any part of this, who don't want to be part of this invasion and who are being arrested for protesting the invasion. Those are the ones who are suffering the most and that of course is absolutely unfair.

So Vladimir Putin has now put himself between a rock and a hard place. There's no easy way for him to get out at this point. You know, he can't just say, all right, screw it, troops, come back. We're done. No, because he has to save face with his people. If he were to retreat right now, well, that's a sign of weakness and God knows Vladimir Putin's not gonna let anybody view him as a weak individual. And that's where things get more dangerous. A weakened Putin, a scared Putin is a more dangerous Putin. And I'm afraid that is what we're dealing with now, right? That is the phase we have entered with this conflict. So the question now is what does a scared Putin do? Scared of losing his own power in Russia, scared of losing this conflict, scared of the sanctions that have been placed on his country that are crippling it. How does he respond to this?

We do not have answers to that. Nobody, by the way, has answers to that. Anybody who claims to don't listen to them.